Baeva Liudmila. Values of
Information Age: Role of Education//2nd EMUNI Conference on Higher Education
and Research Internationalisation and the Role of University (25 – 26 September
2009), Portorož, Slovenia (0,5)

VALUES
OF INFORMATION AGE: ROIL OF EDUCATION

Baeva
Liudmila

Russia, Astrakhan State University,

Dean
of Faculty of Social Communications

Technocratization
and informatization assert active influence to modern society and education. It
one appears not only in economy and mode of life but in consciousness of human
and his basis values. Young generation, who call themselves «users», strives
for using whole the world and the other persons. Analysis of values of youth of
information age shows the transformation of priority of person and her modern
problems.

The main
dynamic trend of axiosphere of the present time is transmission from classical
values to neoclassical ones, connected with the epoch of consumption,
informatization, globalization etc. Classical values, which had been developing
since the antique classics to European classical tradition of the 19th
century, suggest the priority of spirit, soul, sense, order, humanism,
progress, enlightenment and so on. Global changes in person’s attitude towards
the world, nature, power, property resulted in absolutely new orienting points,
the essence of which consists in the turn to corporality, hedonism, pluralism,
tolerance, irrationalism and so on. Neoclassical values suggest shifting of
person’s attention and care from the spiritual (intellectual and moral) sphere
to the material (corporal and external) one; replacing ethnic cultural
dominants with globally unified ones; transforming the cult of knowledge and
enlightenment into the cult of pleasure and naturality; leaving aesthetic and
axiologic monism for “forced pluralism”; “liberation” from conation to the
ideal and transcendent world in the favour of pragmatism and utilitarianism;
substitution of creativity with consumption, life – with the game, real
relations – with virtual ones, contents – with the form. All this changes the
subject himself. The reasons for these changes are the following:

·crisis
of classical epoch principles monistic in their expression: evidence of
Utopian character of developing a perfect person, an entirely constructive
sense, “a fair-for-all society” etc.;

·maintenance
of liberty in the conditions of “mass culture” as an opportunity for not well
educated majority to pronounce their values as primary ones;

·globalization
changes, which result in confusion and conflicts in ethnic and confessional
sphere and realization of tolerance as the only form of potential relations
between civilizations;

·informatization
processes that cause phenomena of virtual world and replace real processes with
simulated subjects, which dissolve a person in the collective consciousness of
the information network;

·argumentation
of ambiguity and chaos as a constructive principle, pluralism and
multialternative approach as the principles of systems development;

·cult
of “glamour” life, comprising and glorifying platitude, luxury, artificiality,
constant renovation, that is formed by the mass media of the “consumer
society”;

·vacuity
of mass culture of chartbusters and simulacra; the esoteric is dissolved in
the exoteric, the elite is diluted in mass, as a result the intellectual and
moral searching for sense of life is replaced with emotionally-doped one,
routine triumphs over loftiness, form – over the notional content;

·unification
of the lifestyle, forming stereotype consciousness and as a result political
apathy, inactivity, constant “boredom”, “being tired” of life, searching for
extreme entertainments, “escape from reality”, “existential vacuum”.

In the 20th
century the world and the man faced the threat of destruction, so a number of
values, which had been dominating the consciousness and creative activity of
people, began to transform and corrupt. Classical heritage of the Renaissance
epoch proclaimed Man, Sense, Progress, love for neighbors, duty to the
motherland, altruism, freedom etc. as superior axiological priorities. For
several centuries humanistic, progressive, patriotic approaches have been
developed successively in European literature, art and historical studies. But
the 20th century failed to answer the expectations. Two world wars,
murderous revolutions, totalitarian regimes, economic and ecological crises
showed that sense is not the universal tool to achieve the reign of justice,
freedom and prosperity. As a response, the crisis of classical system of
values comes: humanism is replaced with antihumanism, progressism - with
pluralism, rationalism - with irrationalism. A. Schopenhauer and F. Nietzsche,
whose works became enormously popular in the 20th century, were
forerunners of the critics of classical values. New postmodernistic principles
avoid any categoricity and uniqueness by all means, main priorities include
freedom, tolerance towards others, energy, innovations, creativity, knowledge,
self-actualization etc. Turning from universal total values to individualistic
egocentric ones caused the downfall of spiritual authorities that used to be
inviolable. Crisis of monistic doctrines, totalitarian regimes, normative
ethics, religious orthodoxy stipulated axiological personalism of the present,
where the existence of a person became of the primary importance. Ignoring
individuality, that had been lasting for a long period of civilization
development, gave rise to ultra-individualism and narcissism, the excess of
which is very dangerous. They evoke keen criticism on the part of supporters of
classical culture, morality, science and politics. The paradox of our epoch
is intensification of plurality, fragmentation, increasing role of the
individual, personal against the background of the expanding integration of
forms of life, globalization of information, economy and culture. Consolidation
of cosmopolitan values accompanies the strengthening of nationalistic mood,
technocratic worldview accompanies an outbreak of mysticism, mass culture
accompanies egocentrism, liberal priorities accompany the violation cult. We
should note that classical values outgrew to neoclassical, moreover they were
“revolutionary” set aside and swept away by the new generation. Such
“re-estimations of values” also occurred before alongside with local social disturbances
and change. Peculiarity of the present phenomenon of values transforming is in
its universal character, which is caused by a certain stage of the mankind
development – humanity passes through a number of limiting states that
multiplied, synthesized certain crisis situations and tendencies. The humanity
was united not only in the result of “axial time” and development of scientific
revolutions all over the world, but also because of the merging of raw
material, labor and financial markets, creation of the global information
network, common environmental, demographic, military matters. But this unity
is, however, only formal. Actually reunion of peoples is very irregular and
painful. Main problems of the globalization epoch are connected with significant
differences in the living standards of the countries, entering this process;
with national values domination over the international ones; with
monopolization (across the globe) in the sphere of economy, politics and
culture; with consolidation of the cult of science and its practical
interpretation; with commercialization of all spheres of life etc. The response
to these problems was clashes between civilizations, ethnoses, confessions,
conflicts of interior and foreign policy that resulted in a complete
reconsideration of values of the previous epoch.

A person of
post-non-classical epoch is free from moral, social and political point of
view, but is extremely dependent from economic and information spheres. He is
motive first of all by conation to material pleasures, consumption and profit,
that can never be satisfied. This prevents him from feeling happy, harmonious,
satisfied with achievement of his goals. The person turns out to lose his
principal bases: he has lost the values, God, community, another person, and on
the one hand, a person becomes unimportant for the world, on the other hand,
the constant rush for benefits deprived him of tight coupling and rooting in
the world. Key conditions of our life are changes, uncertainty, forced
innovations, virtuality of consciousness and relations. “Stream of
consciousness” turned out to be more valuable than logically framed systems,
the subject has turned his back on the object, and finally has lost himself.
The person does not learn the world, but “breaks it open” and uses. The essence
of the person is changing: today he is “using, consuming, entertaining”. As he
is “moving in a moving medium”, a person is in the state of constant becoming,
nonqualitative growing, he is just a bunch of freedom, that can’t be actually
spent for anything, except of consumption of various amenities. The epoch of
freedom turned out to be the freedom from ideology and morality, and today we
should understand that these notions do not have immanent cohesion. The essence
of morality consists not in external behavior regulation, but in self-control
and self-development. Thus, in an attempt to fly from totality to freedom, it
is important not to lose contacts with higher values, but to find them yourself,
to firm up as a person not because of forced communication, ideologic
treatment, zombiing, but due to personal growing from primitive vital needs to
relevant social, spiritual and moral ones. The enlargement of the mind used to
be prevented by some external reasons in the form of ideological paradigms,
conventional behavioral stereotypes, but now the person is influenced by other
factors: propaganda of egocentric lifestyle, cult of enjoyment, virtual
dependence, loss of connection with tradition.

Representatives
of the new generation (“Generation-X”) chooses independence of the community,
they either plunge into the “virt” world, or join together into various groups
like “underground”, or keep in the background, trying to hide, to get lost.
Asociality and egocentrism become characteristic not only rebellious
teen-agers, but also of infantile young people who have become the hostages of
gorged consuming society. The mass, globalizing society is on the threshold of
principal changes of the worldview: creation cosmopolitan value, synthesizing
numerous cultural traditions of people, removal of the three key antinomies
“the West- the East”, “a Person – Society”, “Society – Nature”. Removal of
these antinomies is the main task of the new generation which lives in the
state of freedom, pluralism and global unity.

A roil of
education in of information age is very important. Universities form
significant values of person as a member of civil society with active
democratic, tolerance and humanity position.